Giuliani associate wants to testify that Nunes aides hid Ukraine meetings on Biden dirt from Schiff – By Christina Wilkie (CNBC) / Nov 24 2019
- Lev Parnas, a business associate of Rudy Giuliani, wants to testify to Congress that aides to Rep. Devin Nunes called off a trip to Ukraine this year when they realized they would be required to notify Democratic committee chairman Adam Schiff.
- The purpose of the trip was to interview two Ukrainian prosecutors who claim to have evidence that could help President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, according to Parnas’ lawyer.
- Parnas also alleges that Nunes, a leading Trump ally, himself traveled to Vienna last year to interview a potential source of political dirt on Joe Biden.
WASHINGTON – The lawyer for an indicted business associate of Rudy Giuliani said his client is prepared to testify under oath that aides to Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, scrapped a trip to Ukraine this year when they realized it would mean notifying Democratic Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff.
Lev Parnas would tell Congress that the purpose of the planned trip was to interview two Ukrainian prosecutors who claim to have evidence that could help President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, Parnas’ attorney, Joseph Bondy, told CNBC. Nunes is one of Trump’s most outspoken defenders in Congress. Giuliani is one of the president’s personal lawyers.
But when Nunes’ staff realized that going to Ukraine themselves would mean alerting Schiff to their plans, they instead asked Parnas to set up the meetings for them over phone and Skype, which he did, according to Bondy.
The Intelligence Committee is leading the House’s impeachment inquiry into Trump. It wrapped up two weeks of public hearings Thursday during which several Trump administration officials described a pressure campaign to influence Ukraine into saying it would investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, the frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and a discredited conspiracy theory regarding the 2016 election.
Bondy is representing Parnas against federal campaign finance charges in New York. Parnas has pleaded not guilty to charges of illegally funneling money from a Ukrainian government official to Republican candidates in the U.S., including Trump.
For more than a year, Parnas has also worked closely with Giuliani to dig up dirt on Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine in advance of the 2020 presidential election, according to Bondy. During that time, Trump and his allies in Congress have pushed unfounded claims that Biden intervened in a Ukrainian criminal investigation, and that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The Nunes team’s scrapped trip to Ukraine has not been previously reported, nor have the meetings that Bondy said his client arranged in place of the overseas trip. The meetings took place in late March, and Derek Harvey, a senior investigator for Nunes, represented the congressman, according to Bondy. One of the meetings was with Ukraine’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor, Nazar Kholodnytsky, and it was held over Skype, Parnas would tell Congress. The second, Bondy said, was a phone call Parnas arranged for Harvey with a deputy in Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s office, Konstantin Kulik.
Continue to article: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/24/giuliani-ally-would-testify-that-nunes-staffers-hid-ukraine-meetings-from-schiff.html
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images
